We had set the alarm for 5:30 and up I ran to the Captain’s bridge and he said we were almost there! Ran down to get Mom and we talked to the Captain and watched the radar as we neared the gorge. We entered the Iron Gates Gorge (the gateway to Transylvania) at the Upper Kazan (2300 feet cliffs and 496 feet across the entire river) and then proceeded to the Lower Kazan and the Mouth of the Mraconia where you could normally see the head of the Dacian chief, Decebalus carved into the rock (like our Mt. Rushmore). But it was still too dark – ½ hour later and we may have been able to make it out. We did see the Tabula Traiana plaque, a carved altar in the wall of the rock only visible from the sea. This is a monument from Roman times that was laid to commemorate the construction fo the Roman military road to the colony of Dacia. Trajan led two campaigns in AD 101-2 and 105-6 to conquer Dacia. The stone plaque marks the place where he began to construct his 25-mile road around the treacherous cliffs of the Danube and a few miles upstream from where they began the construction of the first bridge across the Danube. The ship’s searchlights were powerful and we were so close to the gorge on both sides that we could see how high it was and the vegetation most of the way up the gorge. In the 1970s, the gorge was filled with 100 feet of water so at one time it must have been massively high, when looking up from sea level. In 45 minutes, we were through the gorge and we were back in bed; it used to take four days to sail through the gorge. From now on out, we have Romania on our left side (port) and other countries on our right (starboard). At the moment, it is Serbia on our right. The “true” Iron Gates is a single narrow gorge, which boats enter at Km 949 and ends at Km 1049. Parts of the river here are among the world’s deepest, with depths up to 196 feet.
We slept for an hour and opened our windows to see us enter the enormous Djerdap Hydro-electric power station and double lock complex. The two power stations belong to Serbia and to Romania and there is a supporting railway and road bridge. The whole project involved the reconstruction of 13 river harbors and the relocation of 8400 Serbians and 14500 Romanians. It raised the Danube water level and removed the treacherous currents and whirlpools but has greatly diminished the grandeur o the landscape and obliterated a number of historical towns and villages and the river’s diminished flow is no longer sufficient to flush pollution –chemical toxins and other waste –downriver and out to sea.
Eating breakfast while going through the two locks and seeing the hydro-electric plant, we were soon docking at Kladovo, Km 934, not a normal stop along the Danube. This is a shipyard and area for fishing with a population of 11,000. The Serbian side was where the Roman Empire lived and the Romanian side had wild tribes. The first bridge across the Danube was built near here in the 1st century AD because the Romans wanted the gold mines from Transvylania (Romania). The French group have arranged to meet a French wine grower in a nearby village and have lunch and see his vineyards and enjoy a lunch, of course sampling some of the wine of the region. Before boarding the bus, we were surprised to see a Cash and Carry grocery store across the street so we ran in to browse around. The bus left shortly thereafter, winding its way through the narrow roads and village centers as we made our way to the village of Negotin, about 1.25 hours away. The distance is probably not great but neither are the roads and weather today.
Years ago, a bug invaded the grapes in France and they came to Serbia for their grapes. The Soviets said you could not provide grapes to France but after 1990, on this particular farm, a French couple bought the farmland and are working it to create cabernet sauvignon, Riesling, white and rose wines. They exported 22,000 bottles to France last year. “Cheers” in Serbian is “ZIVELI, pronounced SHEE-VA-LEE.
We saw the grapes in the vats, watched as they used the thermometer to measure the sugar contact, saw the underground vats and bottle process and labeling machine. On to a feast, with five different wines and fresh tomatoes, hard provolone cheese, Feta cheese, a pizza dough-shaped “Pogaca” bread that was cooked in a wood oven, pliable and ripped into pieces/not cut…and then SARMA, a sour cabbage leaf with rice and minced meat and fresh light colored peppers and garlic, fresh pork with crackling (!!) and cabbage/salad AND a “Prince’s donut” (cream puff pastry) with two vanilla cookies with jam between them. Yum! We sat in a cozy room off the working area of the bottling section on wooden benches and drank and ate the afternoon away. Who cared if it was raining? Podrum Sorko is where we ate. Owned by Vasiljevic Zoran in the city of Rogljevo. Served us Burgundac, Sovinjon Blank, Kaberne sovinjon with phone numbers 019 542 976.
The toilet – another adventure. We had the choice of the regular western toilet but with approx. 30 other women taking turns and nature calling, we opted for the “eastern” style one – a triangular-shaped hole in the ground in a brick shed without a door - - in the rain – in the mud. They did supply a newspaper, in case you did not have paper!
On the way back to the ship, we visited Nicola’s grandfather’s village of Kobinisca, which has very grand homes. These people worked abroad and brought their money back to Serbia to build either a summer home or a grand home for the extended family; not a typical village.
The cemeteries were very large and had the couples buried next to each other. The tombstone had their photos or engraving, names, dates and then a long dark slab of marble over the bodies. Very elegant.
